


i'll set the table, you can make the fire

by astrolesbian



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, That's what this is about, The Cottage In South Downs, also domesticity, two non human uncles and one non human nephew who are both very human.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolesbian/pseuds/astrolesbian
Summary: “Adam says he’s visiting, and that you’ve turned off your phone.”“Yes, dear,” Aziraphale said, sticking his head around the corner and into the living room. He had been sequestered in his library for the last four hours. “How is he?”“How should I know, I don’t want to talk to the little brat,” Crowley said. Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled knowingly and he vanished back into his library. Peeved at being ignored, and possibly laughed at, Crowley followed him.-OR: crowley antagonizes flat earthers on the internet, is antagonized by his nephew, and kisses his husband: The Fic





	i'll set the table, you can make the fire

**Author's Note:**

> so this is very much based in book canon specifically because of a) timelines and b) The Cottage and also because i started writing this before the show came out and didn't feel like changing any details. timelines are hard. 
> 
> title from the gambler by fun. i know it should be a queen song, we can take away my gay card if we want

People tend not to think of Crowley as the type who gets up early. He, after all, tries avidly to give off the opposite impression. But there’s always this delicious feeling of self-hatred in the air on weekday mornings, and it’s even _stronger_ on weekends. It was more potent in London, but even here, even overshadowed by Aziraphale dreaming a room over (overshadowed by Aziraphale being there at all, really), he can sense it.

So Crowley gets up bright and early at seven every morning. The time is important. Getting up at six is no use, because people that _want_ to get up early get up at six. Five is even worse — it’s all fit young people getting up to go for a _run_ and coming home flushed with endorphins, and that’s no fun at all. But seven — _seven_ is the magic hour, when all the school-kids’ alarms go off, and all their parents are forced to go in and shake them six or seven times. It’s when all the young people in uni wake up hungover and despondent for their early classes — their house is about ten kilometers from a decent university with an irresistible1 library, so he can feel it sometimes when they wake up, especially on Mondays. Best day of the week, Mondays. And it’s when all the adults with jobs hear their phones going mad and groan and roll over and go back to sleep. _Delightful_ hour. Misery just permeates the air, and Crowley makes tea in Aziraphale’s ancient kettle and kicks his feet up on the rail of the porch and drinks it up.

He had invented alarm clocks, back when they were irritating ringing things with little tin bells on them. He had _not_ had a hand in phone alarms. Human beings had done that all on their own.

Being on the porch also means he can glare over the railing at his garden, which is on its way to making some absolutely terrified tomatoes. There’s also a bit of peppermint2.

Sometimes he dozes off again, once seven has faded into eight. People that get up at eight tend to be happier about it, and the people who have already gotten up at seven have grown used to it. Sometimes he stays up and hauls out the laptop that Adam insisted they buy for the house onto the porch. He likes to poke through the conspiracy theory websites. Sometimes he leaves comments3 that rile them up. He likes the Flat Earthers best; they’re stupid enough to be funny and convinced enough of their own brilliance that they never realize he’s messing about with them.

Sometimes he only likes to sit there, eyes closed and chair tipped back, until the tea grows cold in his hands and he feels a gentle hand at the back of his head, combing through the hair there. Then he’ll crack open one eye, and look over to Aziraphale, standing next to him. The tea grows warm again in his hands, to perfect drinking temperature. And Aziraphale will smile, and lean down to kiss him on the forehead, and he’ll say “Good morning, my dear.”

The misery in the air is always completely overshadowed by the gentle contentment that buzzes in the air around Aziraphale, just about then, but Crowley usually finds he doesn’t mind.

“Morning, angel,” he usually answers. “Tea?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale always says, his smile as calm and gentle as a stray ray of sunlight. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

 

Crowley’s cell phone rang as he was spending the afternoon laying in the sun on the couch, Aziraphale puttering around in the room next door. Crowley had been thinking vaguely that it would be nice to have him nearer, and how best to make that happen, when the phone started buzzing and he sleepily picked it up.

“I think I might drop by,” Adam said, on the phone. Crowley removed the phone from his ear and peered at it, nonplussed, as if it had suddenly malfunctioned.

“Yes,” he said, then added, baffled, “is everything all right, then?”

“What do you mean is everything all right?”

“Well,” Crowley said, “you don’t usually call about things.” Adam did what he liked, most of the time. Sometimes he dropped in without warning. Most of the time, plans were made with Aziraphale. His interactions with Crowley were mostly limited to the insulting post-scripts he always included on postcards addressed to Aziraphale and the occasional text. It was an arrangement that suited them well; it exhausted Crowley to pretend he wasn’t fond of Adam, and he suspected it was equally exhausting for Adam to pretend to be annoyed by him. It was another sort of Arrangement, this one far less formal than the one with Aziraphale had ever been, but sometimes Crowley could only admit the existence of affection if it came covered in rudeness and dislike4.

“Aziraphale’s turned his phone off,” Adam said, “or I wouldn’t’ve been talking to you at all.”

This was familiar territory, which soothed the hair on the back of Crowley’s neck.

“Well,” he said, “next time you needn’t call, just show up like a vagrant on my stoop and pretend we’ve all been expecting you, Aziraphale’ll fall all over himself to make sure you’re comfortable like he always does.”

Adam blew a raspberry at him and hung up.

“Wonderfully mature behavior,” Crowley muttered, then called, “Adam says he’s visiting, and that you’ve turned off your phone.”

“Yes, dear,” Aziraphale said, sticking his head around the corner and into the living room. He had been sequestered in his library for the last four hours. “How is he?”

“How should I know, I don’t want to talk to the little brat,” Crowley said. Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled knowingly and he vanished back into his library. Peeved at being ignored, and possibly laughed at, Crowley followed him.

Aziraphale was doing _something_ with the books; Crowley wasn’t sure what for a moment, until he remembered the three boxes of new ones the angel had sheepishly brought home the day before and realized he was alphabetizing them. He settled into Aziraphale’s desk chair, which was near enough to the room’s single window that he could attempt to lie in the sun again for a bit if he wanted to. Aziraphale took no notice of this, humming what sounded like Vivaldi as he attempted to clear space for the new books on the shelves.

He was going to have to miracle them, thought Crowley idly, watching as the angel scowled at the completely non-magical wood of the bookshelf, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his waistcoat5 dusty. There was no other way.

Aziraphale plucked a Bible6 from the shelf, fiddled with it for a moment, and then put it back.

“I got that for you,” Crowley told him, feeling nostalgic.

“I remember7.”

“Isn’t it blasphemous?” Crowley asked, one foot kicked up on Aziraphale’s desk. “To keep them, I mean.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Better me than someone else,” he pointed out. “I don’t think Above has ever really minded so much what I do, as long as it can be spun into goodness. All I’d have to say is that I meant to — to keep them from the wrong hands, or something of the like. Anyway, they don’t care anymore at all, or I wouldn’t be here living with you.”

Crowley considered that. “Suppose that’s how I got away with reality television,” he said, instead of voicing the warm thing that had suddenly settled in his chest at _living with you._ Aziraphale knew all about his various silly warm feelings anyway, there wasn’t much need to voice them anymore.

Aziraphale made the face he always made when someone mentioned reality television in his presence. It was not a kind face.

“Don’t start,” Crowley said. “It’s good entertainment.”

“It’s inane,” Aziraphale said.

“So’s Kafka,” Crowley pointed out. “I mean, that rubbish with the bug? It doesn’t make any sense. Not to _mention_ The Trial. What a _trainwreck._ ”

Aziraphale made a face which meant he thought Crowley was right, but he disliked the idea of giving him the upper hand, and would therefore say nothing. Crowley grinned at him wickedly.

“Oh, hush,” Aziraphale said finally, going back to his books. Crowley tipped back the chair still more and went back to lying in the sun, this time with Aziraphale’s Presence humming at the back of his mind comfortingly.

 

“D’you think he’ll bring the bloody dog?”

Azriaphale did not answer. Crowley paced in the space between the couch and the television and glared at the floor as he passed it.

“He brought him last time and he didn’t even think to tell us, I mean, we don’t have a thing to give a dog. Everything in this house s’got chocolate in it. Or something else poisonous.”

Aziraphale still did not answer. He turned a page in his book.

“If he does he’ll let it on the bed and ruin the sheets,” Crowley complained, “honestly, I don’t know why we bother, he gets everything covered in mud every time he’s here — and he’s a grown man, I’m going to put some extra sheets in that blasted room and leave him to clean up after himself—”

“Sit down, my dear,” Aziraphale said, and wrapped a hand in his, tugging him down onto the couch next to him. “Do stop fussing. Adam will be very comfortable, he always is.”

“I’m _not_ fussing,” Crowley complained. “I don’t even _like_ the blessed child, I don’t know why he has to come here, inviting himself like he’s still Prince of Hell, he gave that _up._ ”

Aziraphale turned another page. Crowley fidgeted next to him, unable to get comfortable against his side, which usually seemed to him the most comfortable place on Earth.

“Crowley.”

This time Crowley was the one that did not speak.

“ _Crowley._ Everything will be fine.”

Crowley chewed on his lip and finally allowed himself to get comfortable.

“It’s not like _I_ mind whether he enjoys himself,” he said, slightly muffled. “It’s only that he’ll be a worse brat if he’s unhappy and I’d like to avoid the fuss.”

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale said. He turned another page. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“You know I don’t like it when you do that,” Crowley said.

“What, agree with you?”

“It’s the way you’re doing it, angel,” Crowley said mulishly.

“I’m not doing it in any kind of way,” Aziraphale said. He glanced at Crowley over the rim of his glasses. Crowley huffed.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

Aziraphale sighed. “Crowley, my dear,” he said, very kindly, “sit up, I’d like to do something.”

Crowley sat up.

Aziraphale leaned over and kissed him, gently and thoroughly. Crowley had a hand in Aziraphale’s curls before he remembered he was irritated, and even then he was only duly impressed that the angel had learned, sometime in six thousand years, not to play fair.

“Cheater,” he murmured, unwilling to say more than that, because kissing Aziraphale was lovely and he wanted to give it his full attention.

Azriaphale pulled back and laughed, not unkindly. His eyes were dancing again. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m only trying to cheer you up.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Crowley said. The resulting kiss was a little less gentle. Neither of them minded.

 

Adam had grown very steadily since eleven, as most children did, and had remained annoyingly wholesome-looking well into his twenties, as most children did not. It had served him extremely well when he’d gotten into ‘mischief,’ as Aziraphale called it, in uni. His hair was a bit more brownish gold than true gold, now, but his eyes had stayed the same; brown and irritatingly knowing. Dog had stayed the same, too, to the surprise of all of Adam’s friends and neighbors, except the Them.

“Hi, Uncle Z,” Adam said, when the door opened and Aziraphale beamed out at him. “Miss me?”

“Oh, yes, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, “come in, come in.”

Crowley was sitting at the kitchen table, on the laptop again. A person with the username _folded_earth_334_ was attempting to convince him that when he looked up and saw the sky, he was actually seeing the ocean, with a “cloud barrier” in between. He was having a good laugh over it.

“Hi, Uncle Tony,” Adam said.

“That’s Crowley to you,” Crowley said. _Uncle Tony_ had cropped up in conversation about the time _Uncle Z_ had, and he usually made a token protest against it whenever Adam visited.

“What are you up to?”

Crowley showed him the Flat Earther forum. Adam laughed so hard he fell into the chair he had been standing over.

“Imagine I’d seen that back when I could still do things,” he choked out, finally.

“We would’ve had an even bigger blasted mess to clean up,” Crowley said. “The stuff with the aliens and the Atlantians was bad enough.”

“Tea, Adam?” Aziraphale said.

“Yes, thanks.”

“What are you looking at on that thing?” Aziraphale said, with about as little interest as he could muster. Crowley and Adam shared a Look before Crowley could remind himself that he wasn’t meant to act like they got along, and by then it had already happened, so he just decided to let it.

“You can’t live in 2019 and not know about the internet,” the boy told him. “Uncle Z, seriously, I know you like to pretend anything after 1850 was a bust—”

“I resent that,” Aziraphale said mildly. “I wouldn’t go past _1750_ , to tell you the truth8.”

“I would,” Crowley said, “but only just until 1926 and then the rest can rot.”

Adam squinted at him.

“The Bentley,” Crowley clarified.

“Uncle Tony,” Adam said, in the manner of a child who thinks he knows everything there is to know about the world and is astounded by the depth of stupidity that adults can display, “there are so many better kinds of cars.”

Crowley lit Adam’s hair on fire.

“ _Crowley,_ ” Aziraphale said reproachfully, and put it out, the hair growing an inch for good measure. “Really.”

“There are _not_ better carssssss,” Crowley said, glancing murderously over his glasses at Adam, who only looked amused, the little brat. What kind of world was it, when his eyes didn’t even give people a good scare anymore?

“It doesn’t even have cup-holders,” Adam pointed out.

“There aren’t cup-holders because I don’t _want_ cup-holders.”

“It only plays Queen.”

“I happen to _like_ —”

“ _Really,_ Crowley,” Aziraphale said again, raising his eyebrows, “do you like Queen? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Taking his side against mine,” Crowley said, “you’ve abandoned me, you really are just a basta—”

“Don’t swear in front of Adam,” Aziraphale said, ignoring Adam’s squawk of protest, “and of course I take his side, I must oppose those down Below in all things.”

Crowley then received an affectionate roll of the eyes, a rare expression from Aziraphale, who usually gave sarcasm a bit of a wide berth. He supposed that made up for being viciously mocked.

“How does that one you like go again?” Aziraphale asked. “ _I’m in love with my car—_ ”

“Oh, come on,” Crowley protested, as Adam laughed. “You should know by now it’s not the car I’m in love with, angel.”

“Oh, well,” Aziraphale said, his face smoothing over into a pleased, half-flustered expression. “There is that small detail.”

“Ugh,” Adam said, cheerfully. “I’ve a bet with the Them that you two can’t go five minutes without saying something soppy, and I’ve just won again, Pepper owes me a drink.”

“You’ll understand when you’ve spent six thousand years biting back soppy things,” Crowley said, in a rare moment of honesty that only made Aziraphale’s smile wider.

“I’m not going to live thousands of years,” Adam pointed out. “Or have you forgotten again?”

Adam, incidentally, looked about twenty-two and three quarters when he said this. He had been looking twenty-two and three quarters for quite some time. Crowley didn’t know exactly _how_ old he was, but he imagined it was a good deal older than he looked.

“You might get to two hundred,” he offered. Aziraphale hit him in the shoulder.

“You might be a little more generous, dear,” he said.

“Well,” Crowley said, “it’s certainly slowed down a bit, the aging, but it’s not _stopped._ ”

They both peered at Adam, who fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, suddenly looking uncommonly like a child. “I don’t know what you’re on about, Uncle Tony,” he said with a sudden kind of forced cheerfulness. “Soon I'll be looking old and disgusting and you’ll have something else to mock me for.”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said, tapping on his chin. “I think you won’t be looking old unless you’d like to.”

Adam fidgeted again. He’d never gotten comfortable with his powers, not really. It was hard to not be afraid when you’d almost destroyed the world when you were eleven. “Maybe I _would_ like to,” he said. “I’ve got the others. I want to go with them.”

There was the matter of _where_ Adam and the Them would all go, Crowley thought, meaning Above or Below, but a sharp look from Aziraphale stopped that thought before he could voice it. “Well, no use thinking about any of that now,” he said instead, and the angel’s hand dropped onto his shoulder and squeezed, gently enough to be imperceptible. “Show me how to use this blasted thing.”

He knew how to use a computer, of course, but if it would make Adam happy to teach him he was inclined to sit back and listen. He was determined that Adam should never know this.

“I’m going to make you a Twitter account,” Adam announced, looking relieved, “there are a lot of awful things that go on on Twitter,” and he set the laptop between them and started clicking on things.

“Excellent,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale huffed and turned back to his teapot. “ _I_ don’t need any of that, thank you,” he said, “I’ve managed quite well without it for a few thousand years.”

“That’s what he said about cars and trains, too,” Crowley said to Adam, loud enough that Aziraphale could hear. “And now look at him. How the mighty fall—”

Aziraphale hit him on the back of the head. Crowley hissed at him without meaning it much, and swatted at the offending hand. Adam laughed at them.

“There are lots of videos of baby animals on Twitter, too,” Adam offered. “Mostly cats.”

“Ooh,” Crowley said, “let’s find some.” It was partly intended to draw Aziraphale back over and partly because Crowley really did like cats. They were elegant little animals, and they didn’t care much whether people liked them, which only made him like them more. He also had a fondness for snakes, for obvious reasons, and for hyenas. He doubted there were a great many hyena videos on Twitter, but he was sure that given time he could find some.

Adam typed something in and clicked, and Crowley was presented with a video of a kitten attempting to climb the leg of a table.

“Brilliant.”

“That’s Pepper’s,” Adam explained. “His name’s Fireball.”

“Rubbish name for a cat,” Crowley complained, but continued avidly watching the video.

He pretended not to notice as both Aziraphale and Adam smiled at each other, serene as anything, and settled into chairs across from each other at the table to talk about Adam’s life, or some other such rot. But a smile ticked, stubbornly and quite without his say-so, at the corner of his mouth.

 

Adam fell asleep on his bed with Dog on his chest after a few bottles of wine, having listened to Aziraphale give an endearingly inaccurate account of popcorn being introduced to London after ships returned with it from the Americas. Aziraphale smiled fondly at his lanky, sprawled shape on the bed and tugged off his shoes before turning the light off. Crowley made a show of yawning, and fell back onto the couch.

“He’s not all bad, I s’pose,” he mumbled, which was the closest he had ever come to admitting out loud that he, in fact, had very positive feelings towards the former Antichrist. “If you can stand that sort of thing.”

Aziraphale did not ask what he meant by _that sort of thing_.9

“Move over, my dear,” he said instead, and sat down on the couch next to him; Crowley tossed his legs haphazardly over Aziraphale’s lap and smiled when the angel’s hand fell down comfortably on his shin.

Aziraphale’s free hand moved and caught his own, pulling it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the palm. Crowley froze10 and stared at him.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, and kissed his palm again. “You’re very good to him.”

“I’m _what,”_ Crowley said. “Angel, I—” A flush had begun at the back of his neck; luckily, the collar of his shirt was high enough that Aziraphale did not seem to notice it. “I’m not kind to him, not like you are, I _know_ that.”

“But you’re _you_ to him,” Aziraphale said sensibly, “and that’s what he needs. People to make him feel normal and human. He’s afraid of it — of _not_ being human.”

“How do you know?” Crowley said.

“He tells me, of course,” Aziraphale said. “He told me earlier when you were out playing with Dog.”

“I was not _playing_ with his blessed _hell-hound,_ ” Crowley said icily. “It was  _trying_ to get into my tomatoes and I only threw the stick to _distract_ it.” Then the meaning of Aziraphale’s words kicked in. “He’s afraid?”

“Sometimes he gets that way,” Aziraphale said, contemplative. “He knows he’ll always have us to come to, and I think that’s a comfort to him.”

Crowley blinked.

“Surely you’ve noticed he comes here most when he’s feeling at odds with the world,” Aziraphale said, still serious, though amusement was laced in, subtly. Crowley felt upturned, and he didn’t like it. “He says we make him feel more normal. That if the two of us can be so human, after six thousand years, he’ll stay as he is.”

“Hmph,” Crowley mumbled, “what’s more human than us? We don’t eat unless we’re going out or we have guests, we only sleep when we feel like it, we—”

“My darling, that’s not what I mean and you know it,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley stumbled11 a little, and then deflated. “Fine,” he said, “you’re right. I only—”

“Only what?”

“Hope it’s all going right,” he said, eventually, after leaning back into the couch cushions and lifting his hand to trace the side of Aziraphale’s face. “That’s all.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and smiled at him. “Of course it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> [1] To Aziraphale. Crowley made it a point to not associate with libraries, even after spending six thousand years on the heels of someone who rather enjoyed them.
> 
> [2] Ostensibly for the nice smell, but often used for cocoa.
> 
> [3] An example of one of these interactions:
> 
> **ajcbentley:** so you believe the earth is flat too then
> 
> **FlatEartherH240:** It is! I’m planning an expedition to prove it.
> 
> **ajcbentley:** yknow something that baffles me, seasons. how dyou explain seasons to someone...i know theyre not real of course but it is hard to come up with why
> 
> **FlatEartherH240:** That’s a simple one. You must be new. Seasons were invented by the government and farmers to sell crops at higher prices at different times.
> 
> **ajcbentley:** ooooh brilliant that is. you must have a good idea about why globes are made round too eh
> 
> And so it went on and on. His leading tally for questions asked before the commenter caught on that he was mocking them was 46.
> 
> [4] He knew that somewhere along the line, Adam had discovered this, and did not like that either. Crowley did not like feeling understood; it made him feel baffled and prickly. Not to mention the fact that Adam understanding how to best be on good terms with Crowley _at all_ implied that he had had some kind of a Conversation with Aziraphale about it, and the idea of Aziraphale talking to anyone about Crowley's _feelings_ made him even _more_ prickly and snappish. Aziraphale, of course, denied everything.
> 
> [5] The waistcoat was blue with stripes, and it was quite new, for Aziraphale. This was perhaps an even bigger miracle than the one he would soon be performing on the shelves. As for him getting new clothes covered almost immediately in book dust, well . . . it was a situation Crowley had resigned himself to long ago.
> 
> [6] The Fool Bible, 1662, in which Psalm 14:1 read “the fool hath said it in his heart that there is a God.” It never failed to make Crowley laugh.
> 
> [7] They remembered the event extremely differently, but the facts of it were that Crowley had acquired the Fool Bible in 1657, had not been able to muster up the courage to admit that he had gotten Aziraphale a gift, and had kept it until the opening of the bookshop, when he’d left it on the counter with a note that said FOUND THIS. —AJC
> 
> [8] This was a blatant lie. Aziraphale adored many things invented after 1750, like instant cocoa, shoe inserts, IKEA furniture stores (“They’ve set up little rooms in there, my dear, it’s so charming!”), and sliced bread.
> 
> [9] This was lucky, because Crowley did not know himself.
> 
> [10] It might seem surprising to an outside viewer that Crowley was fighting the urge to turn into a snake and crawl away to hide in the floorboards as Aziraphale kissed his palm. By all rights it should have seemed equally off-putting to Aziraphale, but fortunately for Crowley, Aziraphale had known him long enough to know that just because he often felt unworthy of tenderness did not mean he did not enjoy it.
> 
> [11] Aziraphale calling him _my darling_ generally tended to invoke this kind of a reaction. He had gotten Crowley to stutter once with it, in 1972, which he was particularly proud of.


End file.
